Camden Courier-Post – November 25, 2003
By KEVIN RIORDAN, Courier-Post Staff
Retired state Superior Court Judge Joseph M. Nardi Jr., a shoemaker’s son who became an attorney, a mayor and a member of the state judiciary, is dead.
Nardi — the mayor of Camden from 1969 to 1973 and a family court judge in Camden County from 1989 until his retirement last year — died Sunday at his Audubon home. He was 71.
Although he had undergone open-heart surgery in 2001 and had more recently been treated for prostate cancer, Nardi "never lost his zest for life," according to his former law partner and longtime friend, Appellate Judge Frank Lario Jr.
Nardi continued working part time as a family court judge, had attended ab asketball game of his beloved St. Joseph’s University Hawks earlier this month, and at a dinner party on Friday, he had served guests some of his signature homemade wine.
"For someone who had accomplished so much, he was a modest man," said his son, Joseph Nardi III of Haddon Township. "He always wanted to be remembered that way."
Nardi was born in Camden to Giuseppe and Rose (Bufanio) Nardi, who had immigrated to the United States from Calabria. The family lived above Giuseppe’s shoe repair shop at 935 Market St., where there usually was opera playing on the radio.
One of the couple’s three sons, Frank, would later become an opera singer. But Joseph Jr., who once said his only ambition in life was to become a lawyer, took a different path.
He began his education at the old St. Mary’s School in Camden, and it was there, in first grade, where he met Joseph Rodriguez. On Monday, Rodriguez, now a U.S. District Court judge, fought to keep his composure as he spoke about the death of his friend of more than six decades.
"It’s like losing a brother," Rodriguez said. "He had great integrity. I admired him."
After graduating from Camden Catholic High School in 1949, Nardi entered what is now St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. It was the beginning of a love affair with what he always referred to as "The College," an affair that continued until the end of his life.
"He was just a wonderful man," said Joseph Lunardi, a school spokesman. He noted that last year, the university’s alumni association presented Nardi with its Shield of Loyola Award, praising him as someone who embodied the Jesuit ideal of being "a man for others."
Nardi graduated from St. Joe’s in 1953 and earned a law degree from Rutgers University in 1956. He and his wife, the former Rita Geoghegan, began raising their family in Camden, where Nardi served as city attorney, assistant county prosecutor and municipal court judge before being elected mayor in 1969.
By this point, Camden had been hemorrhaging jobs and residents for a quarter century. Urban renewal, highway construction and racial tensions had the city on edge, and within days of Nardi’s inauguration, riots broke out around Seventh and Newton streets.
But those disturbances were nothing compared to what happened after a Puerto Rican motorist was beaten by city police and died in August 1971.
Sections of downtown were looted and torched, and Nardi found himself assailed from all sides. Minorities were angry because the police officers involved in the initial incident were not immediately suspended; some in law enforcement were critical of the suspensions; and the business community was fuming.
"I ain’t loved by nobody," Nardi told a Courier-Post reporter in the aftermath of the riot. And in an interview with the newspaper earlier this year, Nardi said, "It was a difficult time… it was a time of unrest… We had an exodus from the city, a middle-income exodus, and it was hurting us."
Nardi "did the best he could in a difficult situation," said former city council attorney John Lack, a friend of Nardi’s for 40 years.
"Throughout it all, he stood tall," said Dennis Kille, who is counsel to current Camden Mayor Gwendolyn Faison.
Faison’s spokesman, the Rev. Tony Evans, said the mayor ordered flags at City Hall flown at half-staff this week.
"Like so many in the city, the mayor admired Judge Nardi," Evans said, adding that Faison has proclaimed Friday as a "Day of Remembrance" in Nardi’s honor.
Said city clerk John Odorisio, "You couldn’t find a more honorable, decent and genuine person than Joe Nardi."
"He was an extraordinary leader," said Monsignor Thomas J. Morgan, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Camden.
Nardi did not seek a second term, and left office in 1973. He resumed his private law practice in Camden and later in Haddonfield, and eventually moved his family to Voorhees.
Nardi was appointed to the state bench in 1989, serving in family court, including a stint as presiding judge. Friends said the work appealed to Nardi’s humanitarian side. "It was a labor of love," Lack said.
Nardi also loved family, friends, good food and fine wine. After his father died in 1987, he began to make wine, using the press that Giuseppe had inherited from his father. The tradition evolved to include a grape-stomping party held each year at the Nardi home.
At festive events such as that — and there were many, according to family and friends — "he was in his element," Rodriguez said.
In addition to Rita, his wife of 48 years, and his eldest son Joseph III, Nardi is survived by his daughters Rita Nardi, Rosanna Innes and Julia Rineman; sons John, Raymond, and Robert; 10 grandchildren; a brother, Frank; a sister, Marie Francesconi; and many nieces, nephews and friends.
Relatives and friends are invited to the viewing from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday and 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Broadway and Market Street, Camden, where a funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
Entombment will be in Calvary Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in his memory to the Joseph and Rita Nardi Scholarship Fund, c/o St. Joseph’s University, Office of Development, 5600 City Line Ave., Philadelphia 19131; or to South Jersey Scholarship Fund, c/o Diocesan Center, 631 Market St., Camden 08102.
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